Recently, my urge to own a tablet as an alternative to using a laptop has grown large. I don't video edit or anything extreme anymore, just wanting something bigger for on the go, So I've looked into recently the craze of the rooted Nook Colors

Leaves me a simple question.
Is it worth buying? For $250-ish, I can't seem to go wrong.
I just don't want to waste money however.

But just a few side questions.
1. When rooted, is it good performance wise, or is it sluggish and laggy, that's a big thing for me. I've watched some videos of it online and at 1.1gHz, it seems to run smoothly but I rather make sure.

2. The difficulty of rooting it? Compared to a phone.
2b. If I were to get it, what's the easiest process?

3. Can I tether internet from my phone to it?
4. Is the web browsing choppy or smooth and does pinch to zoom work correctly

5. Do apps scale well?
5b. Is the market able to be installed and functioning properly?

6. I heard there's wifi problems, if so, does it just vary from user to user?
7. Overall, is it worth it?

Recently, my urge to own a tablet as an alternative to using a laptop has grown large. I don't video edit or anything extreme anymore, just wanting something bigger for on the go, So I've looked into recently the craze of the rooted Nook Colors

Leaves me a simple question.
Is it worth buying? For $250-ish, I can't seem to go wrong.
I just don't want to waste money however.

But just a few side questions.
1. When rooted, is it good performance wise, or is it sluggish and laggy, that's a big thing for me. I've watched some videos of it online and at 1.1gHz, it seems to run smoothly but I rather make sure.

2. The difficulty of rooting it? Compared to a phone.
2b. If I were to get it, what's the easiest process?

3. Can I tether internet from my phone to it?
4. Is the web browsing choppy or smooth and does pinch to zoom work correctly

5. Do apps scale well?
5b. Is the market able to be installed and functioning properly?

6. I heard there's wifi problems, if so, does it just vary from user to user?
7. Overall, is it worth it?

So any input would be greatly appreciated.

1) Yes, it is very smooth,especially at 1.1. Really,like any android device, you risk lag if you download a stupid amount of apps, but that has nothing to do with this device.

2) Yes it is easy to root; just format the SD card with the directions, and you are set. Then you can install different roms, etc.

3) yes you can tether (do it daily with my incredible).

4)Opera mobile is amazing, since it can use the graphics card on the nook to render the web pages, making it VERY smooth.

5) I have no problems with app scaling. Market works fine on all ROMS (BTW, you may want some research, since you have a number of OS choices for the nook).

There are so many threads with the same questions... But to answer your questions...

1. When rooted, is it good performance wise, or is it sluggish and laggy, that's a big thing for me. I've watched some videos of it online and at 1.1gHz, it seems to run smoothly but I rather make sure.

Depends on the rom, Honeycomb is incomplete and because of it; it doesn't run every program perfectly.

CM7 is pretty good at a stable build right now, has bluetooth, but some few are unlucky and find that it doesn't always play nice with their nook. Very small amount of people though.

Stock or Eclair (Android 2.1) runs fine and can be overclocked, just doesn't have bluetooth and won't run newer programs such as FPSE (Psx emulator)

2. The difficulty of rooting it? Compared to a phone.
2b. If I were to get it, what's the easiest process?

As easy as following a couple of instructions (burning an image to an sd card and starting the nook... done)

3. Can I tether internet from my phone to it?
Yes, so long as you have an android phone. Some phones may not work though, so let us know which one just in case.

4. Is the web browsing choppy or smooth and does pinch to zoom work correctly
Opera Mobile takes full advantage of GPU acceleration and web browsing is silky smooth. Pinch to zoom works well on even stock browser or dolphin hd.

5. Do apps scale well?
Some do not depending on the rom. But it's rare and not a problem I run into often on CM7.

5b. Is the market able to be installed and functioning properly?
Yes and yes.

6. I heard there's wifi problems, if so, does it just vary from user to user?
Varies completely by user, most don't have problems, myself included. But, some do.

7. Overall, is it worth it?
Depends... If you like android and want something for light browsing, video watching, games, reading and word processing. Then yes. If you want anything more intensive, then wait for better hardware or get a laptop.

Overall I love my nook color though, it makes a great little tv when me and my wife want to be around eachother, but don't want to watch the same thing. It has a lot of good emulators for video games. Some of the programs are very handy, and it has some pretty addictive games that get me through the day. Size factor, 7" is perfect, and really easy to carry around and whip out when I want or need too. Screen is beautiful! And Chisleu has encoded some pretty awesome videos that demonstrate the Gpu card's best points.

Buy it. Unless you like ipod better than android, then just go buy a Ipad. =\

Did I mention it also doubles as an ebook reader *hint hint* *wink wink* =D, ezpdf reader makes reading pdf's a breeze on this, and even has a page flipping graphic to draw people in around you. Adobe Reader takes advantage of the GPU though and can easily open the most graphic intensive pdfs. =D

Recently, my urge to own a tablet as an alternative to using a laptop has grown large. I don't video edit or anything extreme anymore, just wanting something bigger for on the go, So I've looked into recently the craze of the rooted Nook Colors

Leaves me a simple question.
Is it worth buying? For $250-ish, I can't seem to go wrong.
I just don't want to waste money however.

But just a few side questions.
1. When rooted, is it good performance wise, or is it sluggish and laggy, that's a big thing for me. I've watched some videos of it online and at 1.1gHz, it seems to run smoothly but I rather make sure.

2. The difficulty of rooting it? Compared to a phone.
2b. If I were to get it, what's the easiest process?

3. Can I tether internet from my phone to it?
4. Is the web browsing choppy or smooth and does pinch to zoom work correctly

5. Do apps scale well?
5b. Is the market able to be installed and functioning properly?

6. I heard there's wifi problems, if so, does it just vary from user to user?
7. Overall, is it worth it?

So any input would be greatly appreciated.

1. It depends on what you're doing with it. For basic video viewing and light browsing, its smooth enough on 2.1. Froyo and CM7 (no experience with HC) are smoother than their older sibling, but can't really be considered as truly "smooth" right out of the box. NONE of them are smooth at viewing large PDF files (especially when trying to pinch and zoom), so overclocking is a must if you plan on doing any of that. Honestly, overclocking is a must no matter what you want to do. It simply makes the experience so much more enjoyable. I'm running CM7 overclocked to 1.1 Ghz and I smile every time I pinch and zoom on a website or a PDF. Its that good.

2. A basic root of 2.1 is pretty easy. It will probably take some trial and error, but overall I'd say it requires a moderate level of skill.
2b. If you plan on doing anything other than basic stuff (watching videos and the occasional web surfing), I'd say go CM7 on the internal memory from the get-go. The actual install takes maybe 10 minutes and you're going to get the best functionality and performance without the hassle. CM7 stable lives up to its name.

3. The stock ROM requires an Android phone to tether, but I broadcast from my iPhone 4 with zero issues on Froyo and CM7.

4. See my above gushing about pinching and zooming after overclocking. I use Dolphin HD for my browsing, but Opera Mobile is a nice browser, too.

5. I honestly don't know what this means. If you're asking about how they look on a bigger screen, I have no complaints.
5b. Yes. I've had zero problems with the market on CM7. They even update automatically.

6. WiFi will give you problems sometimes, but refreshing the connection (I have a widget for that) or a quick reboot almost always remedies the problem.

7. Duh. Including the cost of my 32GB SD card, I paid $290 total for mine. It was a little frustrating with the initial struggle of setting it up (WinImage was my problem), but its all good in the hood now, LOL.

So I have to put the image on the SDcard or can I install it somehow to the internal memory?

And for use, it's going to be mostly browsing, app use, moderate use overall, minor video watching, etc.
Sent from my Incredible with the XDA Premium App.

Yes the "Auto-Nooter" program unlocks the stock Android software. There are also bootable sd card images with CM7 and honeycomb, should you not want to erase the stock software or mess with it at all.

You don't have to nooter the stock nook though if you just want CM7, with 2 sd cards you can load one up with CWM (Clockword Recovery) and then have the other one containing the CM7 stable or nightly release; along with overclock update.

Which is what I did on my second nook.

No real point in staying on stock android unless you like the Barnes and Nobles features.

If it doesn't work out of box, return it... It's just not worth it, a lot of nooks right now are in store and defective. Some are little tiny bugs that are okay, others are massive. I decided to try to live with a bug in my old one, and it ended up costing me a huge hassle with india to get them to give me another one.

Normally I really don't mind overseas technical support, but I had a woman run me through troubleshooting and my nook turned off mid "fixing" it and she deemed it fixed and tried to hang up. I then told her it wasn't and she said... oh... let me put you on hold... and then she hung up.

Another thing, some nooks got OEM chargers, and because of it, they don't work well with the nook. If you put your nook on to charge and find the touch screen acting erratic or not letting you type, return it immediately or demand another wire.

Make sure you get a couple of MicroSD cards, as it's always good to have a CWM bootable laying around, I actually hide it in my phone in case I break something on cm7 while i'm out. I can then easily reflash it and get back to it.

If you've never used android before, get titanium backup (the full version) that way you can easily backup your programs.

Bluetooth works, but not from a far distance. So if you're going for it gaming wise, get a wiimote and a classic controller (with wire) so you can give yourself some distance.

The last thing... CM7 is always in development and because of it, it's very easy to spend your whole day flashing new and newer stuff.

As of right now, CM7 uses the kernel .29 which has some issues with deep sleeping and because of it, when your nook is in standby it's usually going to lose about a percentage or two an hour. Stock gets it down to like .2-.5 an hour, but keep in mind these are resting numbers, not actual use numbers.

At this point Dalingrin (who hence forth will be called the Kernel Master) is testing and continually fixing video on CM7. With MoboPlayer (Software decoding mode) I am currently capable of watching a 720p mkv with subtitles.

And others such as Razir, Medline and Chilseu have been making videos to play and push with hardware accelerated videos.

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